A treatise of original sin ... proving that it is, by pregnant texts of Scripture vindicated from false glosses / by Anthony Burgess.

¶. 7.

The Objection return'd upon the Perfectionists.

THirdly, Those that plead for perfection, they hinder the progress of godliness; they perswade men with foolish and ablurd conceits, that they ••ay attain to perfection; for when men do believe, they are perfect; What ••••ed they labour more, if they be at the races end? What need they runne still? Nothing doth more destroy the life and power of godliness, than such arrogant and proud conceits: So that as Seneca said, Many had been learned men, if they had not been conceited of their learning; so many might profitably proceed in the mortifying of sinne, if they were not perswaded, it was mortified already. Thus these Perfectionists preach men into arrogant perswasions of their own righteousness, and thereby hinder them from a true progress in holiness. Be∣sides such Doctrine is in an high degree injurious to the grace of the Gospel, to our Evangelical Justification; if we be whole, we do not need the Physician. Though God vouchsafe inherent grace to us, so farre as to be delivered from the dominion of sin, and also to be subduing of it daily, yet the grace of God exal∣ted in this life is by imputation. The grace without us, not the grace within us is that which doth justifie. This is the grace so frequently spoken of in the New Testa∣ment, and to which all the godly make their recourse under the guilt of sinne, and the accusations of the Law; whereas the Doctrine of Perfection wholly evacuateth this admirable and precious way of Gospel-grace. But enough of this.